re: a further point
All this right wing propaganda that capitalism somehow won some kind of contest with socialism is just nonsense.
Now I'm sure you're an academic. Only an academic could write a sentence like that without either his brain exploding, or collapsing into a fit of giggles.
Obviously, you don't have a working knowledge of 20th century history, including near-textbook examples of the two economic systems running side-by-side in identical cultures. Germany, East and West. Korea, North and South. China, alongside Hong Kong and Taiwan. And as for the milder forms of socialism, have you checked the economies of Europe lately?
Oh, I'm sure I'm "excluding a middle" somewhere around here. That's bad in both arguments, and in eating Oreos.